Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi‘s Nyad (2023) is an earnest biopic on a fascinating character, played with great complexity by Annette Bening, a force of nature, in her own right, employed in this story to full artistic capacity. A dedication befitting the portrayal of Diana Nyad, a long-distance swimmer, who, in 2010, after a long break, and a successful career in sports journalism, decided to take another crack at swimming across the shark-infested Straits dividing Cuba and Florida, 110 miles of sea journey, something that has never been done without a shark cage — while already in her sixties.
She failed on her first try, as a 28-year-old athlete (being famously carried astray by strong currents) — and that strip of sea, henceforth, became her obsession.
It took her several more failed attempts (and four more years) to succeed, when, in 2013, assisted by a team of enthusiastic professionals, key of which was her long-time best friend, the equally gutsy Bonnie Stoll (a keyed-in, steady, steely Jodie Foster), she finally made it — despite the skin burns, hallucinations, jellyfish attacks, shark threats, and relentless deep-sea currents (Nyad’s jellyfish-proof mask is iconic in its audacity).
Nyad had, in the end, almost become the sea.
Stoll was her coach, confidante, and greatest champion, throughout all her later attempts, save for a brief and inevitable fallout, due to Nyad’s seeming inability to comprehend the affect her full-throttle character on others. Diana and Bonnie dated way back when, and their relationship on-screen, as portrayed by Foster and Bening, has that particular flavour of deep knowing and familiarity that old friends who once knew each other intimately often have (if, indeed, friends they remain). The duo sync in beautifully, the chemistry between the actresses is delightful, their interplay warm and witty, and it’s pretty hard not to root for them to succeed in Nyad’s entirely outrageous yet triumphantly anti-agist plan.
A soulful Rhys Ifans plays the curmudgeonly navigator John Bartlett, picked for the job on account of his daredevil attitude and no-nonsense personality (to equal Nyad’s), and his exchanges with Nyad are hilariously on point. This motley crew also includes jellyfish specialists, shark-shield experts, a monosyllabic female captain, an amalgam of a much larger team in RL, cooking up a group dynamic that has an almost documentary feel to it, which, in a narrative film, could be a double-edged sword. The directors are celebrated documentarians, with one Academy Award under their belt, for Free Solo (2018), profiling rock climber Alex Honnold — and Nyad is their first foray into narrative cinema. This film is a crossover, in many ways, hindered in places by its own meticulousness in technique.
Nyad in Nyad is beautifully portrayed by Bening, in turn unapologetic and relentless in her ambition, and over-confident and vulnerable in her social interactions, woefully unable to focus on anything or anyone else except herself and her life’s mission. Something which is Nyad’s unique strength, when it comes to her athleticism. Equally, she movingly puts in effort to overcome the more grating aspects of her character, and reach out to people whom she had pushed away. This redeeming trait, coupled with her extreme courage and determination, serves as inspiration, and dare I say aspiration, to the rest of us — a world-wide audience riddled with self-doubt.
Nyad has no such dilemma — “I signed a contract with my soul to never give up.” Diana, revering excellence, has been championed by her adoptive Greek-Egyptian father (who turned out to be a man with multiple aliases), from whom she received that almost epic drive. She was born to swim, he told her — Nyad translates to water nymph in Greek myth — and swim she did, straight through the trauma of childhood sexual abuse (claims were made against her first coach), the turbulence of her early public coming out as gay, challenges of social awkwardness, accusations of embellishment, and into an international sports career.
This is a film about endurance and an undefeated spirit, as well as a love story, and that focus somewhat interfered with a more in-depth psychological exploration of Diana Nyad’s inner mechanics, touched upon and then glazed over perhaps too quickly.
Nevertheless, Anette Bening is genius in depicting elements of Diana’s tale within the subtleties of her character, which makes up for the missing pieces in the storytelling, up to a point. The role also posed a great physical challenge, and Bening immersed herself in it, training for a year to be able to show up as Nyad for the film. Both Foster and Bening insisted on veracity of the people they were depicting, so body-doubling and unnecessary makeup was forgone for a natural, authentic look.
It’s that real and rough road to achievement that is given full attention in Nyad, with all the blisters, bruises, personality quirks, ravaged skin, jellyfish stings, and trippy visions of the Taj Mahal (dehydration/sleep deprivation hallucinations) — on full display. And although the film, itself, is not artistically exceptional in the way it was delivered, its impeccable craftsmanship (Oscar-winning cinematographer Claudio Miranda) offered a solid base for a cracking script by Julia Cox (loosely based on Nyad’s memoir) and performances that were on fire.
Fuelled by its inspirational score (Oscar-winner Alexandre Desplat) it did keep me glued to my seat until we all reached Key West, Florida, from Havana, Cuba, tracking the indefatigable Nyad and her loyal electrified team — and without a shark cage.
The critics throwing shade at various aspects of the real Diana Nyad’s 53 hour swim be damned.
★★★☆☆
Author: ©Milana Vujkov
Lola On Film 